List of Czech and Slovak Jews

There was a large and thriving community of Jews, both religious and secular, in Czechoslovakia before World War II. Many perished during the Holocaust. Today, nearly all of the survivors have inter-married and assimilated into Czech and Slovak society.

Academics and scientists

Engineering

• Itzhak Bentov, inventor
• Daniel Mandl (1891–1944), civil engineer, inventor, victim of the Holocaust

Social science

• Guido Adler (1855–1941), musicologist, composer, writer, born in Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia
• Yehuda Bauer, Czech-born Israeli historian of the Holocaust
• Samuel Bergman, philosopher
• Pavel Bergmann, historian, philosopher and political activist; signatory of charter 77;
• Berthold Bretholz, Moravian historian
• Vilém Flusser (1920–1991), self-taught philosopher
• Ernest Gellner (1925–1995), philosopher and social anthropologist
• Joseph Goldberger, discovered cure for pellagra
• Anna Hájková, (1978-) Holocaust historian and Theresienstadt expert
• Stephan Korner, philosopher
• Julie Moschelesová (1892–1956) A pioneering geographer in Czechoslovakia who emigrated to Australia
• Ernest Nagel, philosopher
• Samuel Steinherz (1857–1942), Czechoslovak mediaevalist

Mathematics

• Nikolai Brashman (1796–1866), mathematician
• David Gans (1541–1613), mathematician
• Joseph Kohn (1932–2023), mathematician
• Ernst Kolman (1892–1972), philosopher of mathematics
• Charles Loewner (1893–1968), mathematician
• Assaf Naor (born 1975), mathematician
• Alfred Tauber (1866–1942), mathematician
• Olga Taussky-Todd (1906–1995), mathematician

Medicine

• Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis; born in Příbor (Freiberg), Moravia
• Carl Koller (1857–1944), ophthalmologist
• Pavol Steiner (1908–1969), Olympic water polo player, swimmer, and cardiac surgeon
• Rudolf Vrba (1924–2006), pharmacologist (born in Slovakia)

Natural science

• Gerty Cori (1896–1957), biochemist
• Martin Fleischmann, chemist
• Eva Smolková‑Keulemansová, (1927-2024) professor of analytical science at Charles University.
• Rudolf Vrba, coauthor of the Vrba–Wetzler report, chemist

Arts/entertainment

• Bedřich Feuerstein (1892–1936), architect, painter and essayist
• MiloÅ¡ Forman (1932–2018), film director, actor and script writer
• ArnoÅ¡t Goldflam (born 1946), playwright, writer, director, screenwriter and actor
• Hugo Haas (1901–1968), actor and film director
• Juraj Herz (born 1934), film director, actor, and scenic designer (born in Slovakia)
• MiloÅ¡ Kopecký (1922–1996), actor
• Hugo Lederer (1871–1940), sculptor
• Francis Lederer (1899–2000), actor
• Herbert Lom (1917–2012), actor
• Peter Lorre, actor
• Robert Maxwell (1923–1991), media mogul
• Emil Orlik (1870–1932), painter
• Alfréd Radok (1917–1976), writer and director in theater and film
• Karel Reisz (1926–2002), film director
• Ivan Reitman (1946-2022), film director (born in Slovakia)
• Emery Roth (1871–1948), architect (born in Sečovce at the present-day territory of Slovakia)
• Jan Saudek (born 1935), art photographer
• Anna Ticho (1894–1980), artist
• Jiří Weiss (1913–2004), film director and screenwriter
• Adrianna Demiany (née Roskovanyi) (born 1942), Slovak-Hungarian-Canadian Journalist (Born in KoÅ¡ice at the present-day territory of Slovakia)

Athletes

• Kurt Epstein (1904–1975), Czechoslovak national water polo team, Olympic competitor, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
• Arie Gill-Glick (1930–2016), Israeli Olympic runner
• Ladislav Hecht (1909–2004), Czechoslovak-American tennis player, world #6
• Gertrude "Traute" Kleinová (1918–1976), table tennis, three-time world champion, incarcerated by the Nazis in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
• Pavol Steiner (1908–1969), Olympic water polo player, swimmer, and cardiac surgeon
• Olga Winterberg (1922–2010), Israeli Olympian in the discus throw

Music

• Karel Ančerl (1908–1973), conductor, respected for his performances of contemporary music and particularly cherished for his interpretations of music by Czech composers
• Karel Berman (1919–1995), opera singer and composer
• Ignaz Brüll, composer and pianist
• (1882–1944) musicologist, composer, pianist, and conductor
• Alexander Goldscheider (born 1950), composer and producer
• Alfred Grünfeld (1852–1924), pianist and composer
• Pavel Haas (1899–1944), composer
• Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904), music critic
• Gideon Klein (1919–1945), composer of classical music
• EliÅ¡ka Kleinová (1912–1999), pianist, music educator; sister of Gideon Klein
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), composer
• Hans Krása (1899–1944), composer
• Egon Ledeč (1889–1944), music composer
• Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), music composer and conductor, Czech-born
• Herbert Thomas Mandl (1926–2007), concert violinist, professor at the Janáček Academy of Music in Ostrava, Holocaust survivor who was a contemporary witness to the rich cultural life in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto
• Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870), composer and piano virtuoso
• Zuzana Růžičková (1927–2017), contemporary harpsichordist, interpreter of classical and baroque music
• Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942), composer and pianist
• Julius Schulhoff (1825–1898), pianist and composer
• Walter Susskind (1913–1980), conductor
• Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944), composer, conductor and pianist
• Jaromír Weinberger (1896–1967), composer

Politicians

• Victor Adler (1852–1918), socialist politician, born in Prague
• Madeleine Albright (1937–2022), served as the 64th United States Secretary of State
• Ludwig Czech (1870–1942), leader and several times minister for the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic
• Jan Fischer (born 1951), prime minister of the Czech Republic (2009)
• Bruno Kafka (1881–1931), German-speaking Jewish Czech politician, leader from 1918 to his death of the Czechoslovak German Democratic Liberal Party, member of the National Assembly
• Ignaz Kuranda, politician
• Artur London (1915–1986), communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský trial; born in Ostrava, Silesia, Austria-Hungary
• Rudolf Margolius (1913–1952), Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade (1949–1952), a victim of the Slánský trial
• Rudolf Slánský (1901–1952); Communist politician and the party's General Secretary after World War II; fell into disfavour with the regime and was executed after a show trial
• Michael Žantovský, politician and author; appointed to serve as the Ambassador to Israel in July 2003
• Vladimír Železný (born 1945), media businessman and politician, member of the European Parliament, founder of TV NOVA

Religious leaders

• Samuel Abramson, rabbi of Carlsbad
• Tzvi Ashkenazi, better known as Haham Zevi, chief rabbi of Amsterdam, prominent opponent of the Sabbateans
• Nehemiah Brüll, rabbi (born Rousínov, Moravia)
• Israel Bruna, rabbi (born Brno)
• Aaron Chorin, rabbi (born Moravia)
• Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946), Chief Rabbi of the British Empire
• Isaac ben Jacob ha-Lavan, Bohemian tosafist
• Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525?–1609), rabbi
• Mordecai Meisel, philanthropist and communal leader at Prague
• Karol Sidon, playwright, chief rabbi of Prague, and Convert to Judaism
• Salomon Weisz, cantor & Bar Mitzvah teacher in Znojmo and Trebic, cantor of Moravia and Bar Mitzvah teacher in Prague from 1946 to 1968.

Writers

• Henri Blowitz, journalist
• Max Brod (1884–1968), author, composer, and journalist
• Petr Brod (b. 1951), journalist
• Avigdor Dagan (1912–2006), writer
• Egon Hostovsky (1908–1973), writer
• Franz Kafka (1883–1924), novelist
• Siegfried Kapper (1821–1879), writer
• Ivan Klíma (1931–2025), novelist, playwright
• Leopold Kompert (1822–1886), author
• Heda Margolius Kovály, author and translator
• FrantiÅ¡ek R. Kraus (1903–1967), writer, journalist and reporter; wrote one of the first books ever about his experience in Auschwitz, published in 1945
• Jiří Langer (1894-1943), poet, scholar and essayist, journalist and teacher
• ArnoÅ¡t Lustig (1926–2011), author of novels, short stories, plays and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust
• Jiří Orten (1919–1941), poet
• Ota Pavel (1930–1973), writer, journalist and sport reporter
• Leopold Perutz (1882–1957), German language novelist and mathematician
• Karel Poláček (1892–1945), writer and journalist
• Tom Stoppard (born 1937), playwright, known for plays such as The Real Thing and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and for the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love
• Hermann Ungar (1893–1929), writer of German language and an officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia
• Jiří Weil (1900–1959), writer, novels Life with a Star (Život s hvězdou) and Mendelssohn is on the Roof
• Franz Werfel (1890–1945), Czech-born writer; married Mahler's widow
• Alfred Wetzler, writer

Other

• Jacob Bassevi (1580–1634), Bohemian Court Jew and financier
• George Brady (1928–2019), brother of Hana Brady
• Hana Brady (1931–1944), Holocaust victim
• Izrael Zachariah Deutsch, deaf memoirist
• Salo Flohr (1908–1983), leading chess master of the early 20th century
• Petr Ginz (1928–1944), boy deported to the Terezín concentration camp during the Holocaust
• Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal (1759–1849), merchant
• Ignác Kolisch, chess player
• Frank Lowy (born 1930), businessman
• Richard Réti (1889–1929), chess grandmaster
• Yoshua Samuel Rusnak (also "Yehoshua Sh'mu'el Rusnak"; died 1915), diasporan Jew and Zionist based in Kosice, Slovakia; many of his family members were murdered in the Holocaust at Auschwitz
• Wilhelm Steinitz (1836–1900), first World Chess Champion
• Irene Capek (1925–2006), Jewish holocaust survivor, humanitarian and local Australian politician

See also

• History of the Jews in the Czech Republic
• History of the Jews in Slovakia
• List of Austrian Jews
• List of Czechs
• List of East European Jews
• List of Slovaks

References

Footnotes